Pentagon Defends Buying From Russia Trader Aiding Assad

The Pentagon says it’s in a bind, with
nowhere to turn for helicopters needed by Afghanistan’s air
force except Russia, a top arms supplier to Syria’s President
Bashar al-Assad.

The U.S. Army has a $375 million contract to buy 21
Russian-made MI-17 helicopters for the Afghans from
Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state-run arms trader, Pentagon
Undersecretary for Policy James Miller said in a previously
undisclosed March 30 letter to a lawmaker opposed to the deal.

“The MI-17 acquisition effort is critical to building the
capacity of Afghanistan security forces,” Miller wrote. At the
same time, he acknowledged “that Rosoboronexport continues to
supply weapons and ammunition to the Assad regime” and “there
is evidence that some of these arms are being used by Syrian
forces against Syria’s civilian population.”

The helicopter purchases undercut U.S. efforts at the
United Nations to persuade Russia to stop supplying arms to the
Assad regime, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms
Control Association, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.

“It is an embarrassing dilemma,” Kimball said yesterday
in an interview. The U.S. should push for a UN arms embargo on
Syria, he said.

The UN estimates that Assad’s regime has killed more than
9,000 people since an uprising against his rule began, two
months before the Pentagon contracted for the Russian-made
helicopters. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged in August
that nations doing business with Syria cut off trade and arms
sales to Assad and “get on the right side of history.”

Option for 12

The Army has taken delivery of nine of the helicopters for
Afghanistan, with six more awaiting shipment and another six to
be delivered by May 31. The U.S. has an option to buy an
additional 12 Russian helicopters for the Afghans, who have been
flying them for decades.

Vyacheslav Davidenko, a Rosoboronexport spokesman, had no
comment when reached by telephone in Moscow.

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan concluded that the MI-17,
one of the region’s most widely used helicopters, is needed
“after considering its proven operational capabilities in the
extreme environments of Afghanistan,” Miller said in the letter
to Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who’s led opposition
in Congress to the helicopter contract.

Tara Rigler, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that
Miller’s letter is the most current comment on the subject.

Western Equipment

Avoiding the use of Russian-made choppers for Afghans
“would require a kind of wholesale restructuring of their air
force to shift to western equipment,” said Stephen Flanagan, a
national security analyst at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington.

While the deal complicates U.S. efforts to broaden
sanctions against Syria, Flanagan said, “the alternatives are
even worse. I don’t see any way out of it.”

The choppers the Pentagon is purchasing for Afghanistan
include full Western avionics, navigation, communications and
situation-awareness capability. Each complete helicopter package
costs $16.4 million, according to Army data.

The U.S. barred transactions with Rosoboronexport from 2006
to 2010, citing its arms sales to nations including Iran and
Syria as violating efforts to curb proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction. The sanctions were lifted in 2010, coinciding
with Russia’s support of a U.N. resolution expressing concern
over Iran’s nuclear program, according to the Congressional
Research Service.

‘Subsidizing Mass Murder’

Cornyn was one of 17 senators, including Democrats Ron Wyden of Oregon, Richard Durbin of Illinois and Benjamin Cardin
of Maryland, who wrote Defense Secretary Leon Panetta March 12
criticizing the helicopter purchases.

U.S. taxpayers “should not be put in the position where
they are indirectly subsidizing the mass murder of Syrian
civilians,” they said.

The helicopter deal is being used by human-rights advocacy
groups that are pressing for Russia to halt arms sales to Syria.

“I urge you to stop the arms flow to Syria by canceling
the U.S. contract with Rosoboronexport -- one of Syria’s most
significant enablers of mass atrocity,” the New York-based
group Human Rights First said in an online petition addressed to
Panetta. The group said MI-17s could be purchased through
brokers other than Rosoboronexport.

The U.S. in the past has turned to the Czech Republic and
Slovakia to supply surplus MI-17 helicopters to Afghanistan,
said Paul Holtom, director of the arms transfers program at the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in an e-mail.

Russia’s Revenue

Russia stood to lose as much as $3.8 billion in revenue if
it halted arms sales to Syria, the Russian newspaper Kommersant
reported in August, citing estimates by the Center for Analysis
of Strategies & Technologies in Moscow.

Rosoboronexport, based in Moscow, accounted for 85 percent
of Russia’s arms exports as of 2010, according to
GlobalSecurity.org, a research group based in Alexandria,
Virginia. It is the sole Russian company controlling exports of
the MI-17, according to Miller.

The governments of Iraq and Pakistan also have asked the
U.S. to supply them with MI-17s for counterterrorism missions,
according to the Pentagon’s inspector general.

Violence persists in Syria after the UN sent a team of
cease-fire monitors to the country and pledged to expand their
numbers. The observers were intended to calm the fighting so
that talks could begin on implementing a peace plan drafted by
United Nations special envoy Kofi Annan.

Syrian forces have used sniper fire and heavy weapons
against civilians as part of their effort to crush the revolt
against Assad.